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This week my close friend, Dima, was issued conscription to join the war in Ukraine. Throughout Ukraine over the past couple of weeks, the net has been widening toward those who haven’t yet ‘volunteered’ to defend Ukraine from the Russian invaders.

Dima has served with us at Lighthouse for +5yrs with his wife Lena as youth leaders. He’s been such a blessing, and friend. Someone we’ve leaned on for taking care of the property while representing integrity and diligence for the cause of Christ in our community. He knew this day was coming. Just last week we zoomed, and he was already mentally preparing for the inevitable. He was at peace then, and had resolved in his heart that he will trust the Lord, His God, for whatever comes.

It’s one thing to send humanitarian aid to hot-spots, to pray ‘over there’ for peace. It’s been difficult to see some of our youth from Club 180 dressed in army gear and holding weapons on social media. It’s been heart breaking to watch school teachers, mechanics, and retired neighbors called into action, leaving families behind to fend for themselves, some returning home only once or twice in the past year! It’s admittedly quite different, when your close friend, your brother in Christ, is called into something so evil, and blatantly unnecessary.

My prayers solicit tears for Dima. Tears of aching pain for his wife, for his family, for a man who has given himself to loving others, bringing the hope of Jesus kingdom each day in his community through his smile, laughter, and optimism. I grieve today, not because I think Dima might be thrown into the front, or lose his life imminently. I grieve because this war, this sinister brutality, interrupts what is beautiful. Dima and Lena had just bought their first home, they were planting flowers, fixing bicycles and growing their own hobby business. Lena is now thrown into independence. Lena has been the main leader at Lighthouse throughout the war, and now has lost her best friend to wake up to each day, her capacity to care for others diminished as she’s forced to shore up the home front.

The trickle down effect of war is devastating to neighborhoods, the local economies, the schools, and structure of society. Even if the war stops today, Russia has successfully crushed the economy, expunged the brightest young women and families from it’s borders, and instigated limitless forms of trauma upon the next generation from their relentless terror. Those things are facts to the rest of the world, data in the annuls of history with the other wars. But for me, today, it’s about Dima, my friend, one that is intimately part of my own story, who’s influenced the way I see the world, and act within it.

I take solace in the faith of my brother. I believe Dima will be a bright, ray of light and hope wherever God graciously places him. Dima knows this, and would never ask for pity. He would, however, give thanks for the prayers offered up on his behalf. You have my prayers my friend, and my tears.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things

Philippians 4:8

We’re in Texas this week. The last time we were here, war had just broken out in Ukraine and I flew over to Romania. Deb and the kids followed 3 weeks later, and we settled into a new reality, language, people. The year that was 2022 is over, but the war inside Ukraine seems far from ending. In a sense, Deb and I feel right back where we started, and it’s not a comfortable place to be – looking into an abyss of decisions.

I liked this painting, it captures how we feel. This life has been such an incredible ride for us, we’re exceedingly thankful. Being older, we’re learning to step back and just take in the wild beauty of it, even in the brokenness of it all.

When you’re young, time seems unending, the road ahead limitless. The unknown future is met with optimism, mistakes and detours not such a big deal. As we age, however, it seems we take stock in our decisions more seriously. We’ve experienced the brevity of this life, said goodbye to those that surprisingly left us, and our own bodies begin to remind us that we aren’t winding up, but down. This life is truly a breath, a fading flower, and peering down that unending road shows clear signs of an end.

As much as I wish to write that we’ve secured a plan, a place, a space for our family in this coming new season, any attempt to outline that here would be false. Falsity is a funny thing, I’m learning. I don’t actively lie, or mean to mislead, but when faced with the challenge approaching 50 yet seemingly starting over, I want to go there. I want to narrate a story that is climbing upward, attaining. I want the surprising new career path, the security of outward success. Yet, as we continue to wait, to lean into the present moment of trusting Jesus for today, Deb and I are learning to trust in the character of God as our Father, and not in any particular outcomes.

This is true, this is where my heart finds itself today. We have opportunities we’re exploring, very kind and missional people that have extended branches of fellowship and collaboration. We have dear community inside Ukraine flourishing in delightful ways, truly God has taken great care of His garden we were privileged to labor within. As we visit, speak where invited, and navigate this week here in Texas, I find my spirit oddly aware of this invitation to trust Him, to be patient, to give thanks for this place of transition rather than fret within it.

It’s wild, really, that in our most uphended seasons, we find grace to not only weather the storm, but the secret of His near presence as the end our hearts long for. God, who so often becomes our instrumented means to an end, is permitted by our consciousness to move in as the Shepherd of our soul, not just our pocket book and belly. He invites us to just remain suspended, like that cross of old. It’s a place of trust, and there we learn just how panic stricken we are at the menial things, the transient, the temporary things of this life. It’s in this place of willing surrender, I think, that death really loses it’s power, it’s sting.

Nobody wants to die and leap into eternity when we’ve secured a sense of control in our surroundings, our lives comfortable and going somewhere exciting. When we aren’t sure what is next, when we’re looking at a series of all-way-stops and forks in the road, we pause, we reckon with what is most true – and that, for us, is that this life of faith and journey with Christ is a continual invitation to live into His presence each day, to enter the suffering and joys of others when presented with opportunity, and remaining ready to answer His call.

My prayer today was this, “Jesus either fill me from the inside with the knowledge of your will, or surprise me from the outside in a way that we will know and follow you.” Either way, the promise is that His will, will be accompanied with the desire, the infilled, unmistakable desire to do it (Phil 2:13). I have grown to appreciate the freedom the Spirit gives us to navigate this life alongside, along with. However, in the end, God has led me back to that simple place of surrender, where we gratefully hand our lives back and seek to do His will above our own. Whatever, whenever, Jesus we are yours. This is the work of the valley, the upended life, and it is good.

What do you in your valley, your crossroads?

I’m learning that what I considered to be faith in the earlier years, was really an underlying anxiety to be trusting in the Good Shepherd. It’s so much easier to plan our way out of stuff, but all that planning puts us back in control, and comes with all the stress of ensuring success.

Thinking upon true things. Today is where we live, where we love, and are loved. With more questions than answers, we hold onto Jesus and learn to value His nearness more than a cool plan. I’m learning not to leap down the first available road. Lord keep us from the unnecessary detour. The road is not, after all, unending.

Let our decisions come from that deeper places of united faith, as sojourners smiling into the unknown as we bask in the warmth of your affirming fire.

In global solidarity, the year that was 2022 now closes behind us. Unique struggles, victories, all of us. Most will follow us into the new year, like it or not.

Yet, for those who are brave enough to puncture the allusion of falsity and begin living into person God has made us to be, we can live through this coming year with grace and beauty. We live into the year not through striving, nor the commitments we make, but through believing the love that already exists over us, even in our brokenness and yearning.

This world, particularly in the hyper-individualized western culture, celebrates being perfect, strong, certain, undaunted. Yet, I’m learning, experiencing a different kind of value, before my Creator. He sees through the shadows, beyond the ideas of myself, the false ways. He sees me, truly, yet somehow still loves me!

We are not loved for our action, or lack of action. We are not loved because we modify our behavior, or can’t muster the strength to keep resolutions. This new year, and our responses within it, have no bearing on our value, our worth. We have each been made into the image of God, and though broken this world is, and we within it, we are each given gift of our true identity. I’m learning to rest into it, liberated by a perfect love that beckons me to release all other fountains of affirmation.

If Christ is to be our guide, then we must allow him to bring us to our own place of surrender. In this place, we lift up the old version, the fleshly, fallen vision of ourselves onto a cross of it’s own. There, with Christ, we surrender the old, and embrace the new, which is made in His image, the person we truly are before Him in love. I once believed the old was the new, the manufactured the original, but no more.

I walk into 2023 as an uncertain, unsure, weak, and humbled husband, father, man. I don’t know what is next, and I believe God has a lot of forming remaining to do in my life, out of love. I’m being made, and re-made into that person, by His Spirit, through surrender and faith. What an upside down kingdom this is!

Deb and I are in Canada for Christmas. We’ve been snug in my parents warm house as a ferocious blizzard rages over Eastern Ontario. Though the house shakes, and roads are closed, our hearts are full of gratitude for being safe. Our kids are all in the basement, in a makeshift bunker. It reminded me of the subways and real bunkers our friends have hidden in during this past war.

It’s been a wild year, full of heartache, instability. Yet, throughout this year we’ve experienced the invitation of our loving Savior, the Shepherd of our souls. This invitation is beckoning us still as we look ahead, or attempt to look ahead to this coming year. Each year we reset in some ways. The calendar turns, and we look with anticipation. What will this year bring? What will my relationships look like, my workplace, my health?

The older I get, the less is taken for granted, and the deeper satisfying things become hoped for. I hope to be with those I love, to visit with friends torn away by war, to enjoy the sense of control that comes with planning more than a week in advance (not that this produces the joy we hope it does!).

New year, but the invitation from our loving Creator remains the same. It’s the same invitation that brings the satisfaction we long for. Contentment, a restful place of being loved, where our fears melt away and we release the clenched fist over things we hope to accomplish. The same invitation of intimacy, of surrender, and trust. The place of joining Jesus way, the way of the cross, passing through the death of temporal, fleeting things, our souls enlivened in fresh ways that aim past this life and grab hold of anchored things. I sense the invitation to trust, to look beyond the vision of my eyes, to respond to the compelling whisper and wink of the Spirit. I’m in, Lord, as much as I know how.

I want to know you more Lord, Jesus. The invitation has been sent out, the table is set. New year, same invitation.

(below is a 2 minute audio message that automatically plays if you scan the QR code with your phone. It’s on our new bookmarks, which we wil hand out to friends as we journey around the US and Canada on this trip).